Video: Content has a structure

The information you put on your site- the content- can probably be arranged in more than one way. It's important to work out what the primary way will be before you build a navigation structure, because otherwise, you will end up adding more and more menu items as you go along until the whole navigation is a real mess. Most often content is either category, audience, or task-based. If the content on your site can be summed up as verbs-that's doing words-then you have a task-based navigation structure. Here we are looking at a Financial Product site and navigation is verb based: Balance, Save, Invest, Plan. That creates a task-based navigation.

Discover how to create a user experience that embodies utility, ease of use, and efficiency by identifying what people want from websites, how they search for information, and how to structure your content to take advantage of this. In this course, author Chris Nodder shows how to merge engineering, marketing, graphical and industrial design, and interface design to create a website that meets the needs of your customer, and is simple, elegant, and engaging. The course shows how to use graphics to help rather than hinder visitors, balance advertising and content, and integrate video, audio, and other media. Other tutorials consider the landing page experience and elements like contact forms from the visitor's perspective.

Content has a structure

The information you put on your site- the content- can probably be arrangedin more than one way.It's important to work out what the primary way will be before you build anavigation structure, because otherwise, you will end up adding more and moremenu items as you go along until the whole navigation is a real mess.Most often content is either category, audience, or task-based.If the content on your site can be summed up as verbs-that's doing words-thenyou have a task-based navigation structure.Here we are looking at a Financial Product site and navigation is verb based:Balance, Save, Invest, Plan.That creates a task-based navigation.

Just be sure to use the words that your visitors would normally use when youcreate the navigation labels.People have to understand which section is most likely to be right for them.If your site's content is nouns-that's describing words-then it's likelyyour main navigation will be by category splitting up the different types ofcontent on a site for instance, by genre for music or by occasion for florist.Here we have Weddings, Someone Special, Funerals, Apologies, and Special offers.If instead you have distinct user types, that is different audiences, youmight be designing your navigations to split the content that it is relevant foreach type of visitor.

Computer manufactures often do this, asking you whether you're a Home user, aSmall Business, Medium or Large Business or Public Sector, all because theirproducts different for these groups.Be careful if you choose to do this.Your visitors must be able to tell which category they are in and they may evenbe suspicious of your categories.For instance, wondering why small business computers are cheaper than consumer ones.Of course you don't have to rely on just one type of navigation structure.You might decide that your content will benefit from both the category and atask-based menu with audience related content on the homepage or you mightfind that you have information that is better suited to specific form of categorization.

For instance, by popularity or for promoted content, YouTube does this. ByLocation, for news or local interest sites, by the time for news or historicalsites or for instance by alphabetical arrangement on a library site.Typically, however these specialist navigation structures tend to be thesecondary navigation on the page or used deeper within the site.You would still use category, audience, or task-based navigation as yourprimary menu structure.So take the time to think about the best way of categorizing your content.Even if you're working on an existing site, the sooner you create a good contentmodel, sometimes called the information architecture, the sooner you can arrangeyour content in a way that makes sense to your users.

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